Category Archives: spiritual stuff

decisions

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I was raised to believe in right decisions. As in, I always want to be sure that I’m making the right decision. And recently, I realized that sometimes, this can be paralyzing. Sometimes, I get so scared that I will make the wrong decision, that I fail to make any decision whatsoever.

Recently I had a minor major melt down as a result of this thinking. The past year of my life has been decision filled and I started to second guess a decision I made and felt was right. And then I started to second guess my ability to tell when a decision is right or wrong. (Yes, I do realize that I’m relatively mental…so don’t think that you know some great secret that has somehow eluded me).
I was seriously in crisis mode.
And then I had this epiphany. That as people on this earth, we are given agency or free will with which to make decisions. That’s not to say that sometimes there is a right decision for you (please know that I am not referring to the moral sense of the word right…stealing is always a bad decision), but it is to say that sometimes there isn’t a right choice.
That was the epiphany. Some of you might be thinking that I’m joking because this is so clear to you…but it wasn’t to me. But it makes perfect sense now. I realized, in reference to the huge decision I have coming about where I want to spend the first few years of my new career, that unless I get a very clear feeling that one opportunity is the right opportunity, I can make the decisions that makes the most sense for me.
This was such a liberating epiphany. It also made me realize how much I like being able to fall back on the knowledge that I know that I made the right decision…especially when the going gets tough. It’s so much easier to deal with crap when you have someone else (in my case, God) who I can hold responsible for my difficulties.
And another little remembered insight; the nature of having to make a decision is that you have to choose, which infers that you will be sacrificing one option for another. And in difficult decisions, those sacrifices can be very painful on either side.
So, the bottom line. I feel great. I get to decide what I want to do and then own that decision and the sacrifices it requires. And the crisis is over. Yay!

julie and greg got married

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Note: Before looking through the pictures, please understand that I was not the official photographer, which is why a) the majority of the pictures I took were at an angle (I refuse to get in the photographers way or give anyone another camera to look at) and b) I have no pics of just Julie and Greg. Those happened after I had already left for the reception.


This is the only picture I’m going to comment on. Can you see just how much Julie’s dad loves her? I love this picture because I feel like it comes pretty dang close to capturing everything I felt looking at them.

Okay, and maybe this one. The man you see on the left is not Greg, but Julie’s brother, Rob. Julie and this brother are particularly close. Due to the fact that the wedding was in Boston and Rob lives in Alaska, he was not going to be there. Well, a little sibling scheming took place (unbeknownst to Julie and her parents) and Rob showed up in Boston late Friday night. We were all excited to see Julie’s reaction when she saw him. Seriously, it wouldn’t have been better if someone had scripted and directed the scene. Julie walked into the room in the temple, totally oblivious. Her mom tried to make her look. Nothing. Then, suddenly, she saw him. She stopped breathing momentarily, walked out of the room, and began to sob–think Emma Thompson at the end of Sense and Sensibility, right after Hugh Grant comes back and explains that he is not married. Yes…it was just like that. We were all in tears by the time she came back into the room. 

the week from hell

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And this week has been no exception. But I had an interesting conversation Monday evening that got me thinking…and the thinking has continued. This week has been quite the roller coaster, from really bad to really good and back again.

So, the conversation had to do with grass being greener (you know what I’m saying). I didn’t really want to have it because the example being given was totally ridiculous and didn’t apply to my life at all, but…it did make me think. Yes, it’s easy to look at others’ lives and think, “Oh, if only I could be her.” But I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone else’s.

At any given moment this week, in the depths of my personal (and generally hormonal) despair, I was able to call up one of my siblings and get love, support, advice, encouragement, or just an ear to listen. Yes, it sucks to not have a mom sometimes, but I sure did get blessed in the sibling department. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without them.

I know it’s not gratitude month anymore, but I just wanted to get this one down for posterity!

And I’m pretty sure that one of the things I asked for before coming to this earth was my family. I knew how great my siblings would be and I made sure they would be with me.

wow…way too long

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So, a lot has happened. I got a new calling, teaching R.S. It was kind of funny, I actually solicited the calling, but they had already decided to call me to it anyway, so… And I’m speaking in church on Sunday on prayer. I’m reading this great talk by Mary Ellen Edmunds right now and I am loving it.

Okay, the rest of this will have to wait. It’s 1 am and I’m exhausted…and I’ll also still have this crush on BH. It’s kind of fun, but more will come later.

letter to Drew – 9.6.08

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So, Drew, I know better than to only write once every six months, but whatever. It is what it is. I hope you know that we all love you and think about you and pray for you often!

I don’t want to bore you with boring details of my life that won’t help you a lot as you are out in the mission field, except to say that I have started graduate school at BYU and it is kicking my trash.

Anyway, it’s actually been a really great experience so far and I want to share a few little spiritual tidbits that I’ve gotten from going to school at BYU (and being open-minded and not hating all of the BYU zoobies).

First, Sheri Dew came and spoke to us and it was amazing. There were a couple great quotes that I loved from her talk.
“Everything doesn’t deserve your best effort; some things just need to get done. Some things demand your best effort.” I love this quote. I often get caught up (and I’m guessing you’ve experienced the same thing in the mission field) in wanting to do everything perfectly. But that’s not what the Lord asks of us. And in fact, He doesn’t even require that we do our best in everything. We just need to do our best in the things that matter most.

“A leader enables the greatest number of people to help the greatest number of people.” This is what you are as a missionary. You are a leader, and your job right now is to enable people to help themselves, members, investigators, and companions. You can’t do the work for them, but you can create the best environment for them and give them the tools that they need. This is something that I am trying to focus on with my classmates. Creating an environment and a relationship with each of them (or as many as possible) in order to help them “be all that they can be.” Ha ha ha.

And finally, and probably my favorite, “It is easier to motivate someone to do something hard than something easy.” That may seem strange, but it’s true. I have found it in my own life when I’m dealing with myself. My decision to run a marathon last year was a classic example. Running three miles would have been easy, but the motivation just wasn’t there all the time, but knowing that I was going to run a marathon, suddenly I could do three miles, and then six miles, and then 10, etc. This is just something to think about with your members and investigators. Trust them to step up. Ask them to do hard things. They can do them.

Okay, is that enough preaching from me? Seriously, I think about you all the time and hope that you are doing well. And just remember, we all have bad days, when we aren’t motivated and we just don’t care. Don’t get caught up in the guilt of not being the best possible missionary you can be for an hour, or a day, or a week even. Just commit to do better when you need to and move forward. I know that you probably know just how useless guilt is…in fact, how detrimental it is…but it always helped me when Alicia would write to me and remind me that it was okay to have bad days.

All right. Drew, I love you! I hope you are doing so well. Remember more than anything that Heavenly Father loves you and He and your dad are both there with you, cheering you on. We are all so proud of you!

Love,

Chloe